I Have Lived a Thousand Years

by Livia Bitton-Jackson

  My hysterical sobs surprise everyone. I am aware of the astonishment my violent display causes. But I’m powerless in the face of my savage grief. In the face of unbearable loss. I know what I wanted to tell my father in the moments of parting, and I was robbed of those moments.

  All the self-delusions of the ghetto suddenly evaporate with the vanishing dawn. Oh, Daddy! How could you leave without saying goodbye? How could you leave me, Daddy?

  The fathers are gone and the ghetto plunges into profound gloom. Every movement slows, every sound is muffled. Only the crying of the children is louder and more frequent. That’s the only prevailing sound.

  Then, another sound is added. The chanting of Psalms. The older men left behind in the ghetto now sit on the ground in the synagogue and chant the Psalms all day long. And all night long. The chanting of old men and the crying of young children blend into a slow rhythmic cacophony. The sounds reverberate in my aching belly and lull me to sleep.

  The chanting goes on for six more days and nights, until it turns into a dull refrain in my soul.

  CAN I KEEP MY POEMS PLEASE?

  NAGYMAGYAR, MAY 17, 1944

  Tables are set up in the middle of the synagogue yard. A row of Hungarian military policemen are stationed next to the tables.

  In obedience of the latest order, the ghetto inhabitants stand in long lines in front of the tables, their arms laden with piles of books of every size and color. They are delivering prayer books and Bibles, notebooks and picture albums, textbooks and novels, identity cards and passports, huge folios of the Talmud and the Torah scrolls from the synagogue.

  The tables overflow with mountains of paper. The spillage of human lives, loves, and identities now piled high in obscene casualness on the ground.

  “This, too?” A young woman clutches a pile of family photos.

  “Everything.” The Hungarian military man with a spectacular mustache is firm.

  “Can I keep this one, perhaps? Just one?” The trembling hand holds the picture of a baby.

  “Leave everything.”

  The glossy snapshot flutters on top of the pile.

  “Will we get these back? When we come back, I mean.”

  “Oh, of course. You’ll get them all back.”

  With hesitant footsteps the young woman moves on. My brother is next in line. He dumps our books and quickly steps aside. I am carrying our documents, my parents’ marriage certificate, our birth certificates and report cards, paper clippings, my father’s business books, all my best notebooks saved throughout the years, and the honor scroll I had received just a few weeks ago.

  There is one special notebook among them. Into this notebook I had carefully copied all my poems—one hundred and five in all. I am going to plead, politely, for my poems. I am going to smile sweetly, and ask the tough Hungarian policeman with the waxed mustache to let me keep my poems. But when I hear his rough reply to the young mother’s plea for her baby’s picture, when I see his face as he reassures her, I change my mind. Would we indeed get all this back? How would all this be sorted out? Even if his reassurance was sincere.

  Quickly I thrust the notebook with my poems inside my blouse. With my right elbow supporting the notebook under my blouse, I hand the papers to the officer and hurry on.

  My hurried footsteps carry me to our crowded little room in the far corner of the synagogue compound. I have to hide the notebook before anyone sees it. Even Mommy is not allowed to know. She would worry about the grave infraction. Quickly I tuck it deep into my knapsack all packed for departure. With suppressed excitement I run back to the yard.

  I stop, paralyzed. Oh, my God! Wild flames are dancing about the pile of books. A column of dark smoke is rising from the middle of the heap. They are burning our books!

  I walk as if in a dream. Ash particles are flying in the hot breeze. The pungent smell of smoke fills the air. Men, women, and children crowd about the conflagration as the flames leap higher and higher, churning up blinding clouds of smoke.

  The Torah scrolls! The fire is dancing a bizarre dance of death with one large scroll in the middle, twisting in an embrace of cruel passion. Aged folios of Jewish wisdom and faith tumble and explode into fiery particles, spluttering pellets of ash. Volumes of the Bible, leather-bound Psalms, phylacteries turn and twist and burst into myriad fragments of agony. Pictures and documents flutter as weightless speckles of ash, rising, fleeing the flames into nothingness.

  “Almighty God, forgive our sins! Woe to the generation witnessing its Torah burnt to ashes! Woe to the generation witnessing its sacred trust trampled to the ground!”

  It is the rabbi’s voice. He stands with flaming eyes, tears rolling down his long brown beard. “Woe to us, my friends, we have witnessed the burning of the Torah! Woe to us! Woe to our children! God, forgive our sins!”

  The rabbi grips his overcoat and rends a tear in it. The sound of the ripping cloth jars my insides. All the men who stand near follow his example. They rend their clothes one by one, and begin the chant “El mole rahamin…” The chant for the dead.

  Below my feet the flames are dancing no more. Only a huge, flat heap of gray ashes remains, a fluttery, flat heap framed by a wide edge of scorched earth. The accumulation of hundreds of lives. Mementoes of the past and affirmations of the future. My brother’s tefillin, my diploma, and my honor scroll. My grandparents’ picture that hung above my bed, and the novel I had been writing. My father’s letters and all his Talmud. All transformed into this light fluttery gray mass.

  My poems! My poems are safe. They alone escaped the fire. Did it matter now? A stab of devastating guilt pierces my insides. Am I entitled to them?

  Oh my God, can I keep MY poems?

  The taste of ashes in my mouth is laced with a sudden surge of nausea. I reach the public latrine in time.

  I vomit, again and again. But the taste of ashes is not extricated from my insides.

  AUNT SERENA

  NAGYMAGYAR, MAY 20, 1944

  “You cannot carry all that. It’s more than a hundred pounds. It’ll break your back.”

  Bubi overcomes Mommy’s objections, and she helps him swing the loaded pack onto his back. It is a staggering load. But my prematurely tall, seventeen-year-old brother walks with feigned ease under the prohibitive weight.

  “You see? It’s nothing.”

  Then he helps me put the straps of my pack on my shoulders. But as soon as he heaves the pack on my back, I stagger and fall. And I am unable to regain my balance.

  “I can’t carry all this. I can’t even stand up. How could I ever walk with this?”

  “Don’t be a sissy. Try.”

  Mother is worried. “No. She can’t manage such a load. We’ll take a few things out of the pack.”

  I am embarrassed. And hurt. I so wished to carry as much as my brother. Every article of clothing, every item of food may be essential. Perhaps, precisely the thing we take out of my pack will be the thing needed most. Why don’t I have the courage to face carrying the burden? I hate my weakness.

  Aunt Serena volunteers, “Why don’t you add those things to my pack? My pack is too light anyway. You know I can carry much more.”

  But we know she can’t. My favorite aunt is a gentle, frail widow in her late fifties. She has suffered from poor health most of her life. We have learned not to play rough games or make loud noises in her proximity. My kindly, soft-spoken, delicate Aunt Serena, Mommy’s elder sister, has always been my special friend. Ever since I was born she has pampered me with a thousand little attentions. She would share every favorite dish, every special delicacy with me, even if I took hours to show up at her house for my daily visit.

  I remembered her roast pigeon, her cocoa roll, her candied orange peels. Oranges used to be rarities in our country. One could buy oranges only in the spring, and the price would be very high. Aunt Serena would buy one orange, and wait for my visit. We would sit on the veranda, and she would peel the orange slowly, carefully separating the slices. She would hand
me a slice, and take the next for herself. Each slice of orange would be a tender offering of love. Each slice of orange would bind us closer together.

  Then she would wash and boil the orange peel in water and sugar until the syrupy liquid thickened and dried on the strips of peel, turning it into a most delectable orange candy.

  “Forget it. We don’t need these anyway. Forget it.”

  Mommy quickly puts the things back into the closet. Now my pack is bearable. It still feels like a drag on my shoulders, but I manage to stand upright with it. Mother’s knapsack is as large and as heavy as my brother’s.

  The news of liquidation had struck the ghetto like a thunderbolt. On a Thursday the Hungarian military police officer read the order. On the next Sunday, at 5 A.M., the ghetto would be liquidated. “Every person, man, woman, and child, is permitted to take along any of his personal possessions, as much as he or she can carry, but not exceeding fifty kilograms in weight. Belongings must be carried in a sack on the back. No suitcases are permitted. Be prepared to carry your load for long distances …”

  Sunday 5 A.M.! That was less than three days away. Backpacks had to be sewn, choices made. What to cram into a pack small enough to be carried for long distances? Food? Clothing? Valuables? Where were they taking us? To a cold climate? Then warm clothes were most essential. Would they feed us on the journey? If not, food was most essential. How about gold, silver, or even china? Converted into cash, these may prove most important. Who knew? Who could guide us? I wished Daddy was here.

  Mother tore up sheets and made knapsacks for each of us. My brother, Bubi, insisted on having the largest and heaviest knapsack. He wanted to carry the family burden. In Daddy’s stead.

  In mute stillness we move about making preparations for departure. With averted gaze we passed each other, muffling even the sound of footsteps.

  Was this the pall of defeat?

  The men’s chanting of the Psalms was getting louder. The young boys joined the chanters. Bubi sat among them on the floor of the synagogue. The drawn-out sound of wailing had an eerie quality in the dead silence of the ghetto. Centuries’ old Jewish wailing. I hated it.

  Like shadows we passed each other in the synagogue yard, not seeing. The dread knowledge of the past few days hung like a heavy veil.

  A state of stupor gripped us Saturday night, the night before departure. Mommy suggested that we test our backpacks. She thought it was a good idea to wear them for a short time around the room. Sort of a dry run.. Would we be able to carry them for long distances?

  Suddenly, Aunt Serena begins to scream, “I’m not going anywhere! I’m not leaving here! I’m not going anywhere! And I will not let them have anything! Nothing! Nothing!”

  She runs to the closet. She holds up a cup of her fine china. The cup files and crashes against the wall. One by one, Aunt Serena smashes the entire set.

  “They will not have this! And this!” Now she is holding a magnificent Dresden fruit bowl. Stunned, we watch her smash it with astonishing force against the wall. A crystal vase is now in her hand.

  Mother runs to her. She clutches her older sister in her arms. “Please, stop. Please, Serena, stop this. Please, calm down. My darling, do not do such terrible things. Oh, no. Don’t. I beg you. Everything will be all right. You’ll see.”

  Now I am also hugging her frantically, and I begin to sob.

  “Aunt Serena, please. Come, sit down with me on the sofa.”

  But she sees only Mother. Fiercely, she turns on Mother. “Why do you say everything will be all right? Don’t you see? They will kill us all. Every one of us. Don’t you see? First they take everything from us. Then they take us far away from our home. To murder us. I am not going! Let them kill me here. And they will take nothing from me. No more!”

  She grabs her pillow and in an instant tears it open. Feathers fills the room, fluttering like wild snowflakes above the debris of broken china and glass.

  Bubi rushes out of the room. Mommy and I desperately try to soothe Aunt Serena. Finally, she sits down on her bed and begins to cry softly. Mommy is crying, too. And I sob, my head buried in my pillow.

  Slowly Mommy begins cleaning up. Feathers, broken china, fragments of crystal. Bubi returns to the room, and we all work like robots, our limbs sluggish with dread.

  Then, to sleep.

  At dawn we have to be ready for deportation.

  OH, GOD, I DON’T WANT TO DIE!

  NAGYMAGYAR, MAY 21—

  DUNASZERDAHELY, MAY 27, 1944

  It is a dark, cold, cruel dawn. Mommy asks me to join her in shaharit, the morning prayer, and the prayer for the journey. I shiver, and pray, and gulp a glass of milk Mommy presses into my hand. I am unable to swallow the slice of brown bread.

  We join the crowd of people with bundles on their backs at the gate. I recognize the picture from a history book: It was entitled “The Wandering Jews.” Bearded men, bedraggled women, and weeping children, with bundles on their backs. I am part of that picture now. I’m one of the figures in the medieval scene. So is Mommy in her blue raincoat, hauling an outsized bundle on her back. And so is my brother in Daddy’s overcoat, bent like a question mark under the weight of his enormous bundle. And Aunt Serena in her beige gabardine, huddled with her bundle like a frail bird.

  A weird momentum sets the motley crowd of men, women, and children into motion, and silently we march through the haze of the early dawn of the strange village. Gates open. Dogs bark. Children run into the street. Silent, furtive faces appear. Are they curious, or sad? I cannot tell. I do not turn my head. Embarrassment is controlling my movements, my thoughts.

  Horse-drawn wagons are waiting for us at the end of the village. Hungarian soldiers are directing the traffic of wagons loading and departing. Dust, noise, and confusion, and the clatter of a hundred vehicles.

  Bubi gets on a bright yellow buggie. Mommy, Aunt Serena, and I are directed to a drab peasant coach. A young guard from the ghetto recognizes me, and hurries over. “Hello, Ella.”

  “My name is Elli.”

  “Oh, yes. Elli. Now I remember.”

  Mommy and Aunt Serena take the center seat, and I move onto a thin plank behind them. The young soldier sits next to me on the narrow seat in the back. I am embarrassed. I shoot a sideways glance at Mommy. How does she like my sitting next to a soldier? But Mommy is preoccupied with Aunt Serena who, shrunk and pale, is sunk in the depression of defeat.

  The soldier wants to know how old I am, where I come from, and if I have brothers and sisters. He also wants to know what I am thinking.

  “Are you afraid?” he asks.

  “Yes. I am very afraid. So afraid that I stopped thinking.”

  “Do you know where they’re taking you?”

  “I? We don’t know anything. Do you know where they’re taking us?”

  No. He does not. His orders are to escort us to Dunaszerdahely, and stay there until further orders. He looks at me, and I can see sadness in his eyes.

  “Do you know,” he says after a while, “that you look very much like my sister? She has a small nose just like you, and has freckles on her nose. Just like you. But your eyes are different. She has brown eyes. Yours are blue.”

  I do not correct him. The Hungarian csárdás, “Blue eyes … Prettiest is the girl with blue eyes …” made blue eyes the standard of beauty. I am glad he doesn’t notice that my eyes are blue-green.

  During the two-hour coach ride, the soldier, Pista Szivós, talks about himself, his family, and his expectations. He, too, loves to study. He, too, wants to get a higher education. When the war is over. On an impulse I decide to confide in him. My heart pounds with panic as I reveal the secret of my notebook with the poems. “Would you keep it for me until the war is over?” I whisper with suppressed excitement. “If I return, I will look for you in your village across the Danube. If not, you can keep it.”

  “You’ll come back, Elli. I know you will. I will take good care of your poems. You’ll get them back safe and sound. I wil
l be waiting.”

  I hope Mommy does not notice my rummaging in the knapsack. She sits gazing grimly ahead. Furtively, under cover of the knapsack’s bulk, I slip the notebook into Pista’s hand. Unaware, he opens it with eager interest. “May I?” he asks.

  “Oh, no! Please, don’t!” I whisper in panic. “Someone might see it.”

  Uncomprehending, he looks at me. “Why not? What’s wrong?”

  “The books. All books were burned. Didn’t you know? I saved this from the flames. Against the order.”

  In a flash he closes the notebook and puts it into his green canvas satchel. “Don’t worry, Elli Friedmann, I’ll take care. No one will find out.”

  I thank him and my voice quivers.

  The cart now rattles on cobblestoned streets. Dunaszerdahely is packed with gawking faces. Pista Szivós grows silent, and I become aware of renewed churning in my stomach. It’s almost noon.

  The cart caravan comes to a halt before the town’s synagogue, and we quickly disembark onto a carpet of teeming humanity. The synagogue yard is surrounded by a heavy cordon of sinister-looking soldiers in strange dark-gray uniforms and black arm bands.

  “The SS!” Bubi exclaims with horror. “We’re being handed over to the Germans!”

  “We’re in God’s hands,” Mommy whispers. “Hungarians, Germans—what’s the difference? God is with us. He’s with us everywhere.”

  I wish I felt like Mommy. To me the SS look very scary, much scarier than the Hungarians with green uniforms and expressive faces. The SS don’t look human. Their faces aren’t faces, they are grim masks. And their voices are angry barks.

  They bark orders. We are herded into the synagogue yard jammed with men, women, children camping on the ground leaving no room to advance. As I turn back I can see our cart pull into line with the others. Pista waves goodbye and points to his breast pocket. My poems are safe. Thank you. Thank you, Pista. Forgive me. I cannot wave to signal my thanks. I am paralyzed by fear.

  Mommy leads the way toward the synagogue building under a shower of orders barked in choppy German. I follow, picking my way carefully so as not to step on a foot, an arm, a head sprawled on the ground.